G’Day all,
The ‘Now’ Page is an idea I came across recently and thought I would include one on my website. Due to the way things are set up, and the fact that I like to keep a backlog of articles in place in case things get busy, they are usually written some time before they are posted. The idea of the ‘now’ is to keep people who are interest in what I am doing updated…….now!
What I am Doing Now! (Early Sept 2026)
Apart from the usual living stuff, a lot of what I have been doing is to help set us up for the oncoming ‘super-El Nino’. We already get hot and dry here in western Sydney and the idea that that will be worse this/next year is a bit scary. Don’t get me wrong, we are already reasonably well adapted to be able to live comfortably and continue to produce our own food etc. as things stand, but there are always more things that can be done.
El Nino Stuff
The roofing insulation was almost 50 years old even at its best was not super-insulative, plus over the years we have had some rat problems and taking into account its age, the insulation had lost a lot of its loft, and it needed replacing. We did that a couple of months ago, replacing them with R6.0 formaldehyde free batts. It will be interesting to see the difference when the heat comes.
While the back of the house (which faces west) has reasonably sun protection with a deck plus bamboo blinds, banana circle and mandarine tree, there are some chinks in the armour. To get around this I have installed some roll down outdoor shade cloth blinds on the windows that were not fully sun protected.
The main veggie patches have supports covering them, allowing me to put shade cloth over them, usually in mid spring, to reduce the sun impact and allow us to grow veg all year. There are four x 3 metre veggie patches along the western fence that don't, at least not any more. I built a new style of support for the shade cloth over the two southern ones using electrical conduit as the framework a bit over 10 years ago, but they slowly fell apart and I deconstructed it completely last autumn when I put the shade cloth away for the winter.
The southern one, completed
Over the last week and a half I have been putting together the idea of using the same set up as is on the other patches (based on blue line irrigation pipe as the support) only a bit smaller. The thought was I would put two shades up, one on the southern pair of patches and one on the northern ones, leaving the path between the two sets uncovered. While the southern one is now in place, to install one over the northern two beds, I have to move the clothesline (Hills hoist) and am currently working through how I am going to do that and how far I need to move it.
The northern one, work in progress!
I also have concerns that there may be electrical supply issues if everyone has their aircon on in the heat so I am putting a plan together to ensure that the fridge and freezer are blackout proof, independently of the house solar system. Speaking of solar systems I also need to replace the electrolyte (KOH solution) in the nickel iron batteries and that is another project I have to figure out.
Some of these things will be the subject of full scale articles in the future, so stay tuned!
The permaculture lifestyle is an active and busy one in which you are always learning. I hope this will help keep me young, if only I can get my body to play along!
